


Favourites

by FlowerButton



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 15:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9391574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlowerButton/pseuds/FlowerButton
Summary: Minerva is a teacher, and sometimes teachers have favourites.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I finished this at eleven pm (why do I write until so very late?) and so I am incredibly sorry for any grammar or general OOC-ness.
> 
> To be honest, I wanted to write about Minerva before but it had never seemed like the right moment, and even now I'm not 100% happy with this but I wanted to share it because I'm trying to share more of my work.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

Teachers had favourites. Life was like that; one couldn’t be truly unbiased in their teaching, especially when the students could be pompous and rude and hateful. Teachers coped with this by finding students who smiled and listened and tried their hardest. Teachers chose favourites to cope with the overwhelming fear that what they were doing didn’t matter in the end because the child wouldn’t learn anything completely useful and they would leave the school pompous and rude and just as hateful as they had been when they started.

Minerva McGonagall hated the idea of this. She firmly believed that, with enough careful teaching and kind words, any student could learn something more than how to pass their lessons, and only a true teacher could teach them that. When she left the Ministry, she was determined to be a true teacher and to teach them all the same, even if she was never very Hufflepuff at all (Pomona had laughed at her when she tried on the yellow scarf in sixth year, and Minerva had never worn yellow since).

It was impossible, she found. Favourites just appeared out of nowhere. The Bryne boys, Mary Anne Lottle of Brislington, Calvin Wutherington; a selection of her favourites from the years but each as dear as the last. She tried – desperately she tried – but she failed and accepted these small people into her life as easily as she knew they would slip out of it. Because she wasn’t a mother – thank Merlin – but she was a teacher, their teacher, and she was far more determined to teach them than to not prefer them.

Sometimes she saw favourites from miles away. Arthur Weasley was a sure one, from the moment he asked her what cat she became; he was observant but oblivious simultaneously, and although she hadn’t been teaching for long, she understood that she had to help him to see the important things. Like Molly Prewett, another of her favourites, who was short tempered and loud and brash but gentle and caring. Pomona told Minerva often that, despite her fowl temper, Molly had never hexed another classmate without good reason, not even on particularly bad days. And when Arthur Weasley almost fell from the Astronomy Tower during sixth year, with only Molly to save him; well, it pleased Minerva indubitably to see them so close.

The years flittered by and Minerva grew older and wiser, gained promotions and more authority within the school. A war was brewing, Albus told her, and she was far more concerned with keeping her students safe than picking favourites. She’d gained a harsher reputation than she had originally intended to have, but now, now people didn’t do ridiculous things, and she didn’t have to find ways to stop them falling off high places or undoing hexes and jinxes that backfired.

It was therefore a great surprise for Minerva when four young boys all from various ends of the social ladder became roommates in 1971. Curious enough was it to see a Gryffindor Black, but how he’d respond to the grandson of a hair care manufacturer, a werewolf, and a solemn-faced child; it spelled caution for Minerva. She kept keen eyes on the four of them, and to begin with none of them interacted with one another. The solemn-faced boy – Peter Pettigrew, with the nervous eyes – rarely spoke and spent most of his time alone. This was not unlike the werewolf – Remus Lupin, whom Minerva found endearing in his shyness – but far contrasted the loud James Potter, who laughed and talked through almost all of Minerva’s lessons, no matter the detentions she handed out. Sirius Black sulked, at the back of the class.

That was, until the end of the first term. Christmas was fast approaching and Minerva was almost – almost – ready for the holidays. Her seventh years were tirelessly working towards their NEWTs and she owed them all some time off, a sentiment she hoped they returned. With the recent news of attacks from the one they called Voldemort, however, she doubted that her holidays would be peaceful. It seemed her last few days wouldn’t be peaceful either when all the Slytherins’ quills exploded during her lesson.

“What is happening?” she asked sternly, but everyone seemed far too concerned or amused by the simultaneous destruction that they didn’t hear her. She tried again before settling down to see who tried to claim it. No one came forward – obviously – but she watched their motions and oh, wasn’t it interesting that Mr Black’s quill was still intact when he’d been so sulky about being in Gryffindor?

"Now,” she said when everyone had calmed. “I know who did this.” She watched the room and the children began whispering – Black didn’t look up. “But, in the spirit of the holidays, I shan’t give a punishment. I will, however, ask someone to give out some spare quills so you may finish your work. Hm…Mr Black?”

Slowly, the boy rose as normality returned to the classroom. She moved to her drawers and pulled out the shelf with the spare quills, her gaze fixed on Black as he moved across the room. She paid close attention as he passed Mr Potter’s desk and – there it was! A smile, clear as day; it was nothing more than a small quirk of the lips, but Potter was prominently beaming and Black’s eyes were a little happier.

It was then Minerva knew that any unbiased judgement she could have of the two of them would never exist. He took the tray and she smiled against her judgement before continuing with the lesson. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lupin smile as well, and Pettigrew, and she knew – she knew – that she was doomed.

It continued for years. The sullen child who sat at the back turned into a bright young boy who sang loud Muggle songs in the corridors and wore the incorrect uniform. His pranks became more prominent, especially once he’d joined forced with his dorm mates, and she was fairly sure that the dog hairs she and Mrs Norris were finding around the castle were from him – Animagi for Lupin, she supposed. His laughter bubbled whenever he entered a room, and his daily greetings grew from nods to clear shouts across the Great Hall.

“MINNIE, GUESS WHAT!” he shouted one day as she entered. She raised an eyebrow and walked over to him – some of the younger years flushed in fear, but Black kept her gaze.

“Yes, Mr Black?” she wondered.

“Minnie, the day has finally come,” he said, almost sadly. “I have read the entirety of the Transfiguration section in the Library. I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.”

“Have you now, Mr Black? Well, I suppose congratulations is in order. Has he done it, Mr Pettigrew?”

“Yes, Professor,” he said, and he’d changed so much too. He was so wide eyed and curious now, full of something more than dreariness. Happiness, Minerva knew, was a far better lesson than any of the ones she could teach.

“Well then, ten points for Gryffindor,” she said. “Perhaps, Mr Black, you might devote yourself to using the information you have learnt in your lessons?”

“I’m hurt, Minnie,” he said, pressing a hand to his chest. “I’ve got nothing else to do now that they’re gone! I’m book-less. I don’t think I can even go into the Library – too many sad memories.”

“How terrible,” she replied wryly, and Lupin snorted into his porridge. “If you can’t go into the Library, Mr Black, then I suppose you’ll have to use the books in my classroom. Come along, if you want; I have a few hundred at least.”

“Hundred? In your classroom?” Black seemed unsure. Minerva nodded.

“I think you’d thoroughly enjoy them,” she said. “Perhaps you’d like to peruse them later? Around six should be a reasonable time with your schedule.”

And that was how the four boys ended up in her classroom after hours every night for a month. Black was eager, Minerva knew, as were the rest of them. Pettigrew had a great deal of talent for Transfiguration, and Potter and Black were intelligent to a high degree. Lupin was also incredibly gifted, though she had a small feeling that this was due to there being little else to do during the difficult time of the month. And she cared, for every single one of them, which scared her more than she cared to admit.

During their final year, Minerva collected every memory. She remembered the greetings every morning – “Hallo, Minnie, just wanted to know if you had any idea were Sluggie’s new chalk has gone? No? Well, maybe we’ll find it later,” (they did, but only because it was following Mr Snape around and making bird sounds at him) – and the way they used to laugh about ridiculous things – “Professor, James just found a way to Transfigure a cup into a duck, do you think we can put this in a lesson?”. She remembered the way that James Potter scored almost all the goals during the winning Quidditch game and she remembered the way that Lily Evans threw her arms around his shoulders in pride. She remembered Remus Lupin’s tea collection – “Have some, Professor, my father sends too much anyway,” – and she remembered Peter Pettigrew’s scrapbook – “Keep it here, eh, Professor, in case someone wants it one day? It’s got pictures of us all in there.” And she remembered their last day; the way they cheered when Albus let her speak a few words, the way they laughed and sang random snippets of songs as they boarded the train, the way Sirius Black flung himself at her and hugged her tightly as the train began to leave.

“Get on, Sirius,” she told him and fought against the tears. “Go on, my boy!”

“Thank you, Minnie,” he said and then he was gone and so was the train.

Life moved on. She received tea from Remus and biscuits from James – Lily couldn’t cook, he said – and letters from Peter and photos from Sirius, of them all, laughing. Lily was pregnant, she could see, and she sent letters back telling them to take care with a baby on the way. The war had caught up to them now, and Minerva was rarely around to see anything but destruction and lessons and continuous floods of children but she relished in the moments she saw their faces, the children who had grown more than she could have ever known.

The first picture of baby Harry made her cry. It was a moving picture, different to the ones Sirius had sent before, and showed a weak but pleased Remus leaning against the wall. Peter sat on the floor, charming some trains to move past the baby, who sat on James’ knee and grasped at the moving toys. Lily was stroking her husband’s hair and Sirius kept popping in at the back, waving brightly to her. The letter that came with it was in Sirius’ hand, with a post-script from James, telling them everything they could about Harry: ‘talented little blighter – sorry, Minnie, but it’s true’ and ‘he said Ma the other day and he’s only one; I finally understand how you felt every time Sirius shut up in class’.

It was the last letter she received from them before they disappeared, before Remus left and Peter hid and James and Lily vanished. Before Sirius was the only one left fighting. She knew about the Order, she wasn’t stupid, but she cared more for the deaths of her former students, children who had left her mere years before, and she prayed to whoever was there, whatever it was, to protect them, please.

She received another letter, from James, before It happened.

‘Harry’s well, Lily likes the flowers. Sirius is probably bored, so send him a letter, will you? Best wishes, James. P.S: Stay til Harry finishes, won’t you?’

It arrived on the seventeenth of October, and less than a fortnight later they were dead.

She watched the Dursleys for hours before Albus arrived, saw how horrid they were. She longed to take the little boy and leave, but Albus knew what Albus wanted and what Albus wanted, he got. It was then she pledged to watch over him instead, so he wouldn’t forget his parents or anything else. He would be loved, even if it was from afar, even if it wasn’t by those _people_.

She became even more determined after hearing about Peter. Albus told her before she saw the Prophet, and she sobbed unabashedly into the table. Her boys, all of them gone – who knew where Remus was, poor lad. And Sirius…

She did what any good teacher should do and went to his trial. He didn’t see her, in his anger, but she watched him and knew, deep down, that something was wrong. Albus seemed to discount anything and she trusted him, so she watched the boy – because he’d always be a boy to her, always her small first year with the small smile from that Christmas lesson – be dragged away from everything he knew. She funded the memorial stone for the Potters and Peter, and became diligent in never being hurt again.

Her husband died and she cried, but she didn’t allow the pain to sink in. Every month, she made a visit to the Dursleys to watch Harry, only to be chased away with a broom-wielding Petunia. She watched the world change around her, watched the students pass through her doors and out again. Weasleys came and went, and she taught them all the same. None possessed much talent for Transfiguration, though several were good and polite and laughed. When the twins arrived, she caught a glimpse of the loud Potter boy from all those years ago, and gave them detention for disrupting her lesson (she made them sort through old detention slips, and if a few of those four boys’ got in there, well; she couldn’t be blamed for any ideas, could she?) She did not speak much to Severus, who hissed and snarled at his students, and she knew he was not a true teacher but he was close to Albus and she trusted Albus. She was used to trusting Albus now, even if she didn’t always agree with him.

Twenty years after James had laughed loudly, she saw Harry walk into her classroom. He was late but he was smiling, even if it was tense, and Minerva knew once more that she was doomed. His eyes were his mother’s and his hair was his father’s but his smile was his own, and she knew it was a rarity to see it; years of sitting at the end of the Dursleys’ garden had taught her that. The newest Weasley – Ronald – sat next to him, cheerfully talking to him about what Transfiguration was, and the Granger girl – Hermione – turned around and told them to be quiet. And Minerva watched them and sighed inside because it was going to happen again and she knew it would hurt. But still, she cared.

He inherited his father’s talents on a broom and Minerva recruited him for Mr Wood. He was almost as bad at Herbology as his mother and it made Minerva laugh to see Pomona’s face. Harry was so much like James but had Lily’s heart and Minerva watched him diligently, as if taking her eyes off him for a moment would cause him to disappear. She couldn’t lose another one, she told herself; she needed to keep him safe.

She watched Ron and Hermione too, saw Arthur’s clumsiness and Molly’s passion in the former, and her own dedication and desire for knowledge in the latter. She saw the care they had for one another, especially after the troll – she yelled at Albus for that afterwards, screamed blue murder at him, but he’d offered her a lemon drop and she’d sat down again. She saw the way the boys looked to Hermione for help, trusted her knowledge. She saw the way they looked to Ron for knowledge on the wizarding world. She saw the way they looked at Harry when he made them smile or when he said something. And she remembered the way four boys used to do the same, look at one another and smile, but there was something different about these three. They were not the same as years gone past, not the same as their parents or Minerva herself – they were stronger, more powerful in their hearts and minds. Such things made Minerva care for them even more than before.

First year ended and she handed Peter’s scrapbook to Rubeus to give to Harry and helped him to find more photographs, some of his parents and others of people from Hogwarts, like Minerva and Rubeus himself. She kept the last picture the Potters had sent and cried over it once again as the year drew to an end. As Harry recovered from the Incident with Quirrell – she yelled about that too, but Albus never seemed to care as much as she did – she stood by his bedside every night, speaking softly to him about parents and family that he’d never known but that she had, oh how she had. Harry would murmur softly in his sleep, and Minerva’s heart would break all over again, knowing that he’d soon be returning to _that_ house with _those_ people. Why hadn’t she taken him away? Why hadn’t she taken him when she could have?

But time did not let her go back and so she went forward and vowed to protect him as if she had taken him when she had had the chance.

Still, the near-death experiences didn’t cease with him, and she almost blew a blood vessel during his second year. The Whomping Willow incident was just the start of a painful year, full of fear and sorrow and watching children disappear into the wards with Poppy. When everything was over, Minerva was sure that the years couldn’t get any worse.

Third year, however, was when everything hurt again.

“Black is out?” Filius had asked, and Severus had slammed his fist on the table in anger before stalking away. Minerva had frowned at him but remained silent.

“Black is out!” Pomona had said, and Minerva remembered the way Sirius had screamed blue murder and was certain she could not do this again.

“Black is out,” she told the Minister as Harry Potter hid under the Invisibility Cloak in the corner. “He is Harry’s godfather.”

When all was said and done, when everything kicked off, when she was woken abruptly by Hermione’s screams as she was dragged into the castle, she visited Sirius; as a cat, of course, but he sat and spoke to her as if she were a human being.

“I didn’t do it,” he said softly. “Tonight proved that Peter is alive and he killed James and Lily. He killed my family. Merlin knows what will happen to Remus now, but at least he knows.” He looked down at the cat, whose tail swished from side to side, and smiled.

“Minnie will know,” he said. “Minnie is the best professor in this place, and I’m including Dumbledore in that. You know,” he added, “I saw her at my trial and she was crying. I don’t want her to cry, not like that, not again. Minerva,” he added, as if he knew it was her, “did everything for me, to make me who I was. Who I should be. I miss her.”

The cat vanished after that, but Minerva sobbed all evening. The sobs turned into laughs when she saw Harry leap from his bed in the Infirmary and tell Ron everything the next day, when she saw the three of them in class and smiling, when she watched the three of them clamour into the train carriage to leave. Rubeus grinned at her as she left, and she shared a small smile with him, both of them knowing what the other was thinking.

The war grew and her efforts to keep Harry safe continued but she failed consistently; Fourth Year was a tragedy she never saw coming. Sirius sent her letters, under a pseudonym, and she sent letters back, addressed to Remus. They detailed frequent visits from Order members and his hatred for being forced into Grimmauld Place again, while Minerva replied with short letters that told him she was there, for him.

By the time Umbridge arrived, Minerva was almost desperate to fight someone, if not for herself then for the boys she couldn’t lose again. For Harry, who was hurting after Cedric – poor, poor Cedric, Pomona was inconsolable and had quite the right to be too – and for Sirius, whose words told of sufferings that Minerva had always suspected but never been assured of. She wanted to leave, to collect the two children – who, she thought often, were hardly children anymore – and to take them far away from the people who hurt them.

But she couldn’t abandon children in the middle of a war because she wanted to. These children were innocent, these children were _hers_ , and for Umbridge to use them – for Voldemort to use them – would be an unforgivable crime. She fought tooth and nail for her children, who didn’t belong to her, who never belonged to her, and she stayed by their side until the very end. She always would.

She wasn’t there when he went. She didn’t cry, didn’t scream. She left small gifts for Harry, small boxes of sweets that she supposed could be interpreted as gifts from the Weasleys. She gave Harry space and time, to scream and yell. She gave Remus time too. Neither came to her, and it seemed Albus forgot her as well, but she didn’t cry. She put his last letter to her in the same drawer as the photographs he sent, as the letter from James, as the tea boxes from Remus, and she stood firmly at the head of her department, at the head of her classes. She would not run from whatever came – she would stand with her children, for Sirius and for herself.

The next year past quickly, the war almost climaxing, and Minerva didn’t have any way to fight for the pupils so she took to defence. She charmed the school, charmed the stairs, charmed everything she could but it was never enough. It was only when Albus died that she cried but then she got to work and charmed more rooms and more floors and more passageways. This was not just a home now – this was a centre for the revolution against Him and Severus, and she was the soldier on the front lines. She was the commander in chief of a rebellion on home soil and if she didn’t protect the innocent, if she didn’t aid the suffering, then who would?

The students returned and she counted the missing and the damaged before setting to work. The lessons took up and she hid the broken, snuck them into hiding places and cupboards and empty classes in order for them to escape the Carrows. She gave messages to Neville Longbottom who took every student she sent to him, and Minerva had never thought of him as a favourite before but he was, he was. She held the children when they cried, first years whose hands shook and fifth years whose skin bled. She gave them resources, ways to fight back; she took them into her classrooms and tried to find a way to make the school a home again because this was her place, her school, and these were her children. No one, not the Carrows nor Severus nor Him, no one would take her children from her.

No one fought harder than she did when that day came. No one killed more men than she did; no one took hex after hex, curse after curse. No one snarled or hissed more than she did. Few cried more than she did over the bodies of the dead and no one sobbed harder than she did over the body of Remus Lupin, whose hand lay firmly over his wife’s.

No one screamed as loudly as she did when Rubeus brought back the boy in his arms. It was like seeing James all over again but this was worse because James had been others’, James had belonged to his friends and his family and his son, and James had had some years of life. Harry had belonged to others but he’d belonged to _her_ ; she’d sat with him for hours in the garden of Dursleys when Petunia had forgotten him out there, she’d listened to his screams and anger through the walls of Grimmauld Place, she’d been no mother to him but she’d watched him grow and become someone she was proud of. Her child, her last one.

But he’d given his life for her children, not _hers_ but the others, the ones who stood behind her. The ones whose hands shook and whose skin bled and who cried and cried and who lay dead on the floor. Those were all of her children, even if they weren’t her _children_ , and Minerva would not let them take a single one of them.

Not again.

He rose and they won, but Minerva did not weep tears of joy. She took him away from the battle site, from the bodies of his friends and his father’s friends and her friends, away from everything he had seen. She sat him in her classroom and made him some tea and they sat, in silence, sobs breaking through every so often. She took the letters and the boxes and the old pictures and the moving photograph that Sirius had sent from her drawer and handed them to him.

“He sent that,” she said softly as Harry cried. “That’s you, my boy, and your mum and your dad. And your godfather, who loved you more than anyone I have seen. And I am here, my dear boy, and I promise you I will not leave you.”

She stayed, as Headmistress, until every Potter child passed through her doors, every Lupin, every Weasley, every single one. She took each of their hands as they left and told them that she was proud of them, whoever they were. She sent them Christmas presents and told them stories of their grandparents and their uncles and the people that they’d never met but who she had, oh how she had. When she left the school, as she eventually did, she did not see any of her favourites but she did see a family of children whose passion rose like Molly’s, whose curiosity gleamed like Arthur’s. She saw children whose laughs boomed like James’, whose hearts grew like Lily’s, whose happiness shone like Peter’s, whose courage stood like Remus’. She saw children whose determination radiated like Neville’s, whose loyalty stayed like Ron’s, whose minds worked like Hermione’s. And she watched as these children smiled their own smiles, like Harry’s and Sirius’, and she returned them, finally smiling her own again.

**Author's Note:**

> Look! My [tumblr!](https://the-grape-bowl.tumblr.com) Come say hi!


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